The interview in question is withYoutuber Dan Allen.
I’ve put together some highlights.
It was a tough project from the outset.
We’re talking millions of dollars more."
Nonetheless, Schofield said the relationship between Striking Distance and Krafton was positive at first.
“I really liked working with them for the first couple of years.
That was the term that kept being used, ‘no regrets’.
Just put whatever you want into the game.”
“If you want the game to ship, come take over the studio and ship it.
I should have, absolutely.”
Schofield certainly isn’t without fault amid all this.
In October 2022, heboastedon Xitter about Striking Distance staff working “6-7 days a week”.
The Callisto Protocol met withiffy verdicts at launch, not least thanks to technical problems on PC.
“As we’re making DLC, I kid you not, they started ignoring me.
The game came out December 2nd.
We know what we want to put in the game, and we’re just going to patch it.
And so we just kept patching.
And Krafton weren’t talking to us - they were just like, where’s the DLC?
We did 86 patches, and in three and a half months, that’s what we needed.
And on PlayStation data pipe it kicked ass.
The reviews were really good.”
According to Schofield, Krafton lacked the experience as a company to nurture an original videogame property beyond PUBG.
I mean, I had to cut like three or four enemies out of it."
“America lost 1.2 million people, right?”
“This wasn’t like ‘oh, they’re getting sick’.
One of my best friends, my college roommate died.
We all lost people.
It was sometimes our whole department of VFX would be out, our animation department.”
Differences between how the US and South Korean governments handled the pandemic exacerbated communication difficulties with Krafton.
“When I would call in Korea they’re not having that problem, right?
You know, we don’t follow rules as well maybe [in the USA]?
“We lost a lot of people.
We had 49 people quit on top of that.
I did not even think we’d get the game done.
And we’re cutting stuff to get it out.
We added some stuff back in in the end.
Freed up some time - not time, freed up some people.
But you’re right, there should be a sequel.”
Schofield’s abandoned plans for the sequel include a story concept featuring side character Dani Nakamura as lead.
Another scenario would have brought back the original game’s Jacob, who was voice-acted by Josh Duhamel.
